Kindergarten Resource Kit for Himalayan Schools
Dear friends from all over the world,
We reach out to you from Abiding Heart Education with a special request,
We are an international teacher training centre in transformational experiential Buddhist education.
We’ve designed a unique teacher training course and foundation curriculum for kindergartens in the Himalayan regions.
https://www.abidingheart.education/about-us
As some of you may know, Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the pandemic has made life extra difficult for many people, as government assistance is extremely limited. Vaccines are not yet widely available and the only way to control the spread of Covid is with a very strict curfew.
In order to try and help those around us who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic, we would like to train and employ people in the community with woodwork, knitting and sewing skills to make toys to be offered to monastic kindergartens. This employment will ensure they can continue to support themselves and their families.
The people of the High Himalayas are subsistence farmers, which means long hard days of working in the fields, tending to the farm animals and gathering wood to be able to survive.
In the remote High Himalayas, not all villages have a school near enough to make the journey possible for younger children, so some of the farmers’ children are sent as boarders from as young as four years old to rural monastery schools.
A typical example of a village kindergarten in the remote High Himalayas is a very basic space. Children in rural Nepal play with whatever is available in their environment.
Kindergartens should be warm, caring, stimulating, and fun for young children, with safe toys to help them play, explore, and learn to make sense of their world and inner emotions.
The locally made toys and resources we can offer to the monastery schools will help improve the children’s education and quality of life, and the monastic teachers (most of whom have already joined our teacher training) will have the resources to teach the children using the Abiding Heart approach. This is life changing for both children and teachers.
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How your donations will be spent
We are now seeking funds to equip eight kindergartens with a full kindergarten resources kit. This will also give employment to skilled people who have lost their jobs. We have already trained some of the people to make these toys.
The cost for one kindergarten kit which includes giving employment to 5 people who will make and prepare these kits is $4,000 USD and £3,000 GBP
We require support for the following additional costs:
· Transportation. This cost will vary depending on whether a vehicle is used, porters or mules or a combination $400-$500USD per remote kindergarten
· Rent for store room / wood workshop to make and store the toys. The cost for renting such a room is $2,000 a year.
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Dr, Meyrav Mor, originally from Israel, is the founder of Abiding Heart Education in Nepal. She is leading this beautiful effort to help the people she cares for with the support of her team.
